[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by davem

Even the artist may fail to fully appreciate or value the art they have created.

But the artist, as the creator, has the most sincere understanding of the work having seen it through from the smallest bud of inspiration to the many rewrites, the many cross-outs, the many deletions, all the way to what you see before you.

Tolkien's attempts to impose a Christian interpretation on his work are as much of a failure as the attempts of others.

You've no idea how hard I'm snickering right now. If Tolkien says his works are vaguely Christian, you'd think he'd know.

in his statements there he clearly felt contempt for the very approach he himself took to his own work in that & other letters & comments:

He would have been better leaving interpretation to the reader (if they want to interpret it at all) rather than using his work to promote his religion - which simply cheapens it.

Davem, dear, are we now discussing what Tolkien would have wanted believed of his work, or what you would prefer? Do you think that the Christian applicability cheapens the story? If the parallels being drawn here weren't Christian, would there be such outcry?

Perhaps he felt contempt for forced understanding, but that doesn't necessarily stop him nor does it cheapen or disqualify the thought. Surely you've done things that you don't entirely agree with. A touch of hypocrisy in the Master? Surely not. Surely he wasn't human?

And besides, it's not like he was promoting his religion as an entity so much as promoting the ideals of it. Does having a definate side of "good guys" cheapen a story because there's less of a threat of betrayal?

To claim that only someone who believes that cloud castles are a real possibility has any valid opinion on clouds is not logical

You would stand beneath my castles in the sky and kick out the foundations based on your own logic? How arrogant.

Originally Posted by Squatter

Tolkien was a subtle and learned man: he cannot be dissected with a hammer.

What about the scalpel of free thought?